Search this blog

29 February 2008

So now I have a dilemma as I have no outright favourite. My favourite colour combination at the moment is blue & brown, so I have made one of each, kind of.

The mountboard bases were created using Distress Inks (weathered wood, broken china, antique linen & walnut stain). Then delving into the leftover papers from making this week’s Skinny, I added images to two of the tags, eyelets, ribbon & a couple of gems.

28 February 2008

The Inchie challenge theme over on Inching Artists this week is Zodiac.

The inspiration for my inchie is taken from the current phase of the zodiac, which is Pisces.

The fish image is from a cdrom of copyright free vintage images. The background is made using Distress Inks (weathered wood & broken china).

As some of the visitors to my blog may not have come across inchies before & may not, therefore, be aware of their size, they are a one inch square. Here is a photograph of this inchie in between a £1 coin & a €1 coin.

27 February 2008

I watched Jill Tuck on television yesterday demonstrating the Moonshadow Inks & Spray Mists, so I decided to use mine for this challenge. I still had the papers from this weeks Skinny challenge to hand, so I combined the two to make a Thank You card.

I started by making the Moonshadow papers. I took a piece of textured card & did a wash with Buccaneer Bronze & then dabbed more splodges over the whole card. This was left to dry. Taking the wet brush, I used the leftover ink to cover a piece of plain white card. I put this to one side to dry.

Once the textured card had dried, I sprayed it with a mist of Buccaneer Bay Blue.

On a piece of watercolour card, I stamped the large dragonfly stamp by Elusive Images (from Graphicus) with Archival Ink (Jet Black). Taking a fine brush, I then coloured the dragonfly, again using Moonshadow. Once dried, I cut the dragonfly out & covered the back with walnut stain Distress Ink (as only the body & tail were to be attached to the script card).

The small dragonfly was stamped onto a small tag & set with a bronze eyelet.

I hope this image captures the magic of Moonshadow & demonstrates the different effects that you can create using them. Click on the image to see a larger picture.

26 February 2008

The mountboard base was covered in clock paper from Hot Off The Press. The stamp from Non Sequitur was stamped with watermark ink by Versamark & then Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls powder lightly brushed over the wet ink.

I stamped the image again & punch out two circles. The hands of the two clocks are the legs of two brads, which were attached through the centre of the circles & adhered to the main ATC with silicone glue. I used a clear stardust pen from Sukura to highlight the other clock faces.

The corner circle was cut from another piece of HOTP paper & an eyelet set in the middle. I twisted some craft wire & fed it through the hole.

20 February 2008

The mountboard base was covered in paper from K&Co Brianna range. The heart stamp from Clarity Stamps was inked with Archival Ink (Jet Black) & each section was stamped onto a different paper from the Brianna paper pad.

The heart was placed on top of the base making sure the two Flower words were visible. Three flower brads, two flower punched shapes & a heart punched shape were added.

18 February 2008

The base is mountboard covered in paper from Hot Off The Press. I have used rubber stamps from 7 Gypsies and Non Sequitur. The gentlemen image is from Crafty Individuals and wording cut from K&Co paper.

17 February 2008

Using a template from Making Memories, I cut a standard blank card into a tag card and covered the front with paper from K&Co K-ology’s Hannah paper range.

Using a small tag template, I cut a tag from Hot Off The Press card, onto which I stamped the Erté image from Clarity Stamps, using Archival Ink (Sepia). I stamped the same image onto the K&Co paper and cut out just the feather boa and hat. These were glued onto the small tag. The tag was edged with my 18ct Gold Krylon pen and gold and burgundy ribbon tied through the top of the tag.

I punch three small flowers from the HOTP card and a further one from the K&Co paper. In the centre of each of the card flowers I added a blob of gold Stickles. In the centre of the paper flower I added a pearl.

16 February 2008

The domino was coloured with Tim Holtz Adirondack Alcohol Ink (lettuce). The dragonfly stamp from Clarity Stamps, was stamped with Archival Ink (Sepia). The words were typed, the font selected, printed onto glossy card and inked over. The front of the domino was then covered with Glossy Accents.

Once dry, it was edged with 18kt Gold Leafing Krylon pen. The dragonfly image was stamped onto cream vellum and the wings cut out. Finally two gold coloured gems were added.

15 February 2008

A new challenge blog was launched this week called My Time to Craft, setting a new challenge each Monday.

The first theme chosen was Newspaper, so grabbing the Sunday papers from last weekend, I had a flick through to get my creative juices flowing and stumbled across this photograph in the Travel section. Because of it's size, I decided to make an Artist Trading Card. Words cut from the same section and just a touch of my walnut stain Distress Ink added around the edge.

14 February 2008

This week’s challenge from Inching Artists is Holes. As today is Valentines Day I have made my inchie on Love.

I have used paper pricking on white textured card to create a heart shape. In each corner I made four holes and using silver metallic thread, I made them into kisses. The wording is a clear epoxy sticker by Tim Holtz.

The white inchie is then mounted onto silver card, so you see silver through the holes (I hope).

13 February 2008

I have used mountboard as the base and covered it in papers from Hot Off The Press.

The eyes stamp is by Non Sequitur and is stamped using Archival Ink (Sepia). The iris section of both eyes are coloured with Distress Ink (broken china) and then the whole eye is covered in Glossy Accents.

12 February 2008

The base is made from burgundy mountboard (a gift from the craft show) and I have used cranberry Adirondack Acrylic Paint Dabber over the top.

The central image is from a copyright free CD of Vintage Graphics, printed into glossy photographic paper and mounted with silicone glue.

Then there are a collection of oddments from my scraps pot; gold coloured paper, K&Co paper (with the butterfly covered in Glossy Accents), a small heart cut from Grungeboard (coloured with mahogany Distress Ink) and off cuts from my heart border punch.

10 February 2008

I coloured the domino with Tim Holtz Adirondack Alcohol Inks (cranberry and wild plum). I inked up the Art stamp, by Elusive Images from Graphicus, with black Archival ink. I then pressed the stamp onto the domino and then wiped the wet ink off. The archival ink removes some of the alcohol ink to leave a ghost of the original stamped image.

I drew around the outline of the letters with an embossing pen then heat embossed with gold embossing powder.

Finally I coated the domino with Glossy Accents and added my butterfly.

09 February 2008

I went to the Creative Stitches & Hobbycrafts show in Brighton, East Sussex today.

It was a lovely sunny day and very mild. I managed to get there before it opened so was one of the first in.

With over 100 stands, it was well laid out; although I did manage to lose my sense of direction several times.

I found myself at the Clarity Stamps stand, which as you all know is a favourite of mine. I was delighted to find Barbara doing demonstrations. We had a good ole natter and she did a demo using one of her fabulous stamps and Art Glitter’s Fantasy Fiber.

Watch out for some cards using this technique in the near future.

I have many of her miniature stamps and am now the proud owner of a few of her normal sized ones too. Thank you Barbara.

I also found the Molton Designs stand and watched the demonstrations again. I obviously wasn’t paying full attention at Farnborough so picked up a few more tips on how to use Friendly Plastic.

My thanks also go to the kind man on the Home Workshop Ltd stand who gave me some scraps of mountboard. Crafters never turn a freebie down.

I purchased some ribbon, which I can never resist, book rings and some gorgeous material.

There were some lovely embroidery exhibits there, loads of demonstrations and free lectures throughout the day. I will remember Margaret Beal fusing material using a soldering iron and Diane Doward (Create & Craft TV) using paste through stencils then covering the image with glitter.

All in all a lovely day out and well worth putting in the diary for next year.

08 February 2008

I have also used papers from Crafty Individuals, rubber stamps from Non Sequitur and 7gypsies and my faithful walnut stain Distress Ink. The suitcase is covered with Crackle Accents for that battered and well worn look. The acetate image was from The Crafthouse Press.

04 February 2008

I'm aware that I'm getting predictable. Images and words from just one leaflet, which came with the Sunday papers. It may look simple, but it's good practice to put your inchies glasses on and see how things look in Inchie World.

03 February 2008

This week’s Artist Trading Card challenge was set with the Chinese New Year in mind. February 7th sees the start of the year of the Rat. So here is my ATC, which reveals my somewhat quirky sense of humour.